Chinese animation or Chinese anime refers to animation made in China. In Chinese, donghua (simplified Chinese: 动画; traditional Chinese: 動畫; pinyin: dònghuà) describes all animated works, regardless of style or origin. However, outside of China and in English, donghua is colloquial for Chinese animation and refers specifically to animation produced in China.

The history of animated moving pictures in China began in 1918 when an animation piece from the United States titled Out of the Inkwell landed in Shanghai. Cartoon clips were first used in advertisements for domestic products. Though the animation industry did not begin until the arrival of the Wan brothers in 1926. The Wan brothers produced the first Chinese animated film with sound, The Camel's Dance, in 1935. The first animated film of notable length was Princess Iron Fan in 1941. Princess Iron Fan was the first animated feature film in Asia and it had great impact on wartime Japanese Momotarō animated feature films and later on Osamu Tezuka. China was relatively on pace with the rest of the world up to the mid-1960s, with the Wan's brothers Havoc in Heaven earning numerous international awards.

China's golden age of animation would come to an end following the onset of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Many animators were forced to quit. If not for harsh economic conditions, the mistreatment of the Red Guards would threaten their work. The surviving animations would lean closer to propaganda. By the 1980s, Japan would emerge as the animation powerhouse of Eastern Asia, leaving China's industry far behind in reputation and productivity. Though two major changes would occur in the 1990s, igniting some of the biggest changes since the exploration periods. The first is a political change. The implementation of a socialist market economy would push out traditional planned economy systems. No longer would a single entity limit the industry's output and income. The second is a technological change with the arrival of the Internet. New opportunities would emerge from Flash animations and the contents became more open. Today China is drastically reinventing itself in the animation industry with greater influences from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

As China’s economic reform reached its height, the 1990s and early 2000s gave way to a relatively open television and film market, where Japanese and American animation powerhouses found a receptive audience among Chinese moviegoers. As government-backed funding dried up and investors flocked to more profitable businesses, animation outsourcing started to take off in China, where cartoon factories sprung up, churning out frames for TV series and movies owned by foreign clients from Japan and the U.S.

The 2004 cartoon series Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, a slapstick-coyote-and roadrunner-like cartoon, became a huge success in China. Pleasant Goat and his goat pals became cultural icons for China, and a powerful soft power tool in foreign relations and brought light and helped the trend of globalization. The show was not only popular with children but surprisingly adults as well. Although there was some controversy for being too violent the show was banned during a censorship on violence and pornography in China.

Chinese animations today can best be described in two categories. The first type are "conventional animations", produced by corporations of well-financed entities. These content falls along the lines of traditional 2D cartoons or modern 3D CG animated films distributed via cinemas, DVD, or broadcast on TV. This format can be summarized as a reviving industry coming together with advanced computer technology and low cost labor.

The second type are "webtoons", produced by corporations or sometimes just individuals. These contents are generally flash animations ranging anywhere from amateurish to high quality, hosted publicly on various websites. While the global community has always gauged industry success by box office sales. This format cannot be denied when measured in hits among a population of 1.3 billion in just mainland China alone. Most importantly it provides greater freedom of expression on top of potential advertising.

In the 1920s, the pioneering Wan brothers believed that animations should emphasize on a development style that was uniquely Chinese. This rigid philosophy stayed with the industry for decades. Animations were essentially an extension of other facets of Chinese arts and culture, drawing more contents from ancient folklores and manhua. There is a close relationship between Chinese literature works and classic Chinese animation. A significant number of classical Chinese animation films were inspired and prototyped by ancient Chinese literature. An example of a traditional Chinese animation character would be Monkey King, a character transitioned from the classic literature Journey to the West to the 1964 animation Havoc in Heaven. Also drawing on tradition was the ink-wash animation developed by animators Te Wei and Qian Jiajun in the 1960s. Based on Chinese ink-wash painting, several films were produced in this style, starting with Where is Mama (1960). However, the technique was time-consuming and was gradually abandoned by animation studios.